Phobias are known as an emotional response learned because of difficult life experiences. Generally phobias occur when fear produced by a threatening situation is transmitted to other similar situations, while the original fear is often repressed or forgotten. The excessive, unreasoning fear of water, for example, may be based on a childhood experience of almost drowning. The individual attempts to avoid that situation in the future, a response that, while reducing anxiety in the short term, reinforces the association of the situation with the onset of anxiety.

<LI class=MsoNormal dir=ltr style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; COLOR: black; DIRECTION: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed; TEXT-ALIGN: left; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt">[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]- fears involving other people or social situations such as performance anxiety or fears of embarrassment by scrutiny of others, such as eating in public. Overcoming social phobia is often very difficult without the help of therapy or support groups. Social phobia may be further subdivided into

Phobias vary in severity among individuals. Some individuals can simply avoid the subject of their fear and suffer relatively mild anxiety over that fear. Others suffer full-fledged panic attacks with all the associated disabling symptoms. Most individuals understand that they are suffering from an irrational fear, but they are powerless to override their initial panic reaction.

Treatments

Various methods are claimed to treat phobias. Their proposed benefits may vary from person to person.

[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] (CBT) can be beneficial. Cognitive behavioral therapy lets the patient understand the cycle of negative thought patterns, and ways to change these thought patterns. CBT may be conducted in a group setting. Gradual desensitisation treatment and CBT are often successful, provided the patient is willing to endure some discomfort. In one clinical trial, 90% of patients were observed with no longer having a phobic reaction after successful CBT treatment.

[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] (EMDR) has been demonstrated in peer-reviewed clinical trials to be effective in treating some phobias. Mainly used to treat [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط], EMDR has been demonstrated as effective in easing phobia symptoms following a specific trauma, such as a fear of dogs following a dog bite.

[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] coupled with [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] can also be used to help remove the associations that trigger a phobic reaction. However, lack of research and scientific testing compromises its status as an effective treatment.

These treatment options are not mutually exclusive. Often a therapist will suggest multiple treatments.

Non-psychological conditions

The word "phobia" may also signify conditions other than fear. For example, although the term [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] means a fear of water, it may also mean inability to drink water due to an illness, or may be used to describe a chemical compound which repels water. Likewise, the term [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] may be used to define a physical complaint (i.e. aversion to light due to inflamed eyes or excessively dilated pupils) and does not necessarily indicate a fear of light.

Non-clinical uses of the term

It is possible for an individual to develop a phobia over virtually anything. The name of a phobia generally contains a Greek word for what the patient fears plus the suffix [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]. Creating these terms is something of a [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]. Few of these terms are found in medical literature. However, this does not necessarily make it a non-psychological condition.

Class discrimination is not always considered a phobia in the clinical sense because it is believed to be only a symptom of other psychological issues, or the result of ignorance, or of political or social beliefs. In other words, unlike clinical phobias, which are usually qualified with disabling fear, class discrimination usually has roots in social relations. Below are some examples:

[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]- fear or dislike of strangers or the unknown, sometimes used to describe nationalistic political beliefs and movements. It is also used in fictional work to describe the fear or dislike of space aliens